The Girl Who Waited
by Blufinger
Summary: "Red Dragon at night; True Love's delight." - She waited every night for that scarlet dragon, fluttering in the realm of dreams. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited... Post-Inheritance.
1. One

**The Girl Who Waited**

Yes, CP, I can make "obscure" Doctor Who references too. Without further ado:

**Summary:** _"Red Dragon at night; True Love's delight."_ - She waited every night for that scarlet dragon, fluttering in the realm of dreams. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited... Post-Inheritance.**  
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**Warnings: **Inheritance Spoilers. This is a Post-Inheritance fic. Some swearing, some violence, some sexual references. Minimal in comparison to my other writing, however. You should be mostly fine. There is some (deliberate) OC-ness, although not as strong as my other writing. There is a first-person OC perspective - enough to put people off, I'd expect - but bear with me. _  
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**Note:** **There are footnotes during this. If you see a number in brackets, e.g. (1), this implies that there is a footnote at the bottom.**

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><p><span>One<span>

.

When I think of her, I think of her hands. She had cold, broken hands; frigid to touch. Wrapped in thin, sagging leather, rugged and ragged with scars, they were the palms of a rough shaman from the North, not of a dainty queen. Each finger of hers was a brittle spindle of wheel that snapped – softly as it spun – like breaking bones, as she moved them. They were witch fingers – dark magic, she might joke, feebly. When she did joke. She rarely did joke, even when I was a child.

I liked to compare mine, as a boy, my soft little honey-coloured paws – against her black, broken claws. They stank of something feral. Of something wild – and strange, and free. So at odds with the muted yellow silk sleeves, the trimmings of fussy lace, and the still, patient, expression she always wore, even to court.

"Your mother," my father would always dutifully explain, "is an old war horse. Still fierce, if not strong, and will not stop charging on." He always seemed smugly pleased with himself at his inventive metaphor.

I liked to imagine her thundering across the desert; across crag-marked canyons and black mountains, with no-one at the reigns_(1)_. Only one problem confounded me:

"Why doesn't she wear horse shoes, then?" I asked, perplexed.

My father disdainfully told me I had an overactive imagination.

He always failed to convince. No – he _encouraged_ me, even. Although he would not pluck those _exact_ words from his upturned lips, not _my_father, but a giddy smirk could be snatched from that tightly sealed mouth now and again.

His hands were nothing like my mother's. Small and fleshy, sweaty, that fumbled awkwardly with eccentric gesticulations and odd shapes. Limp, and flimsy – hands, in his mind, were arbitrary creations, baffling ornaments of designed for dreary men of a lower, crasser substance. What use was a son – my father would postulate aloud, strolling in the luscious eve-lit courtyard, in a rare vis a vis with my mother – a son of a king, no less, if he could not _think_? If he could not utilise his _mind_? It was an _atrocious_ crime, an unforgivable act, a mortal sin, as far as he was concerned, not to cultivate intelligence, and treasure _intellectual curiosity_.

My mother, sniffing a bush of fresh magnolias, muttered wistfully in response about a _curious_incident with a flask of sulphuric acid and a small, arrogant man.

That shut him up.

Predictably, my father took my education – a rigorous, structured education – to be his foremost personal duty. (My mother was far too occupied with tedious bureaucracy and rubber-stamping to be concerned with something so trivial). At the tender age of eight, he entrusted himself with the perilous task of becoming my personal tutor in natural philosophy.

He would berate me – with books; with theory; with _science_. I despised it at first, quivering beneath those fusty volumes; they were rich in iron words of mighty men – men of truth, men of knowledge, men of clarity – men I could barely comprehend. My father patiently watched me struggle. Always watching, always waiting. His hawk eyes glaring.

"It's like _this._"

I did _this._

"It's like _that._"

I did _that._

"Think _rationally._"

And so I did.

I could eventually recite, by rote, the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow_(2)_; the four capitals of ancient Assyria in chronological order_(3)_; the thirty-five rudimentary elements and the sixty-four rudimentary compounds_(4)_; endless lists of names and numerals and factual information. I could quote theorists, scientists, philosophers, poets, princes – _oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt...(5)_

And so began a violent love affair with the page_(6)_. Those tangled jungles of frenzied letters – I began to lose myself in them, utterly, in a maddening cacophony – a tune so repulsive that it drew me in further. My thirst for words, delicious words, became insatiable – and my father, noting this, noticing this, brought me vast tankers of them.

He began to spoil me. He spoiled me with rotten fruits of knowledge, bulging, overripe volumes bursting with pages, decrepit tomes thick with mould, lost relics, sensuous words – verbose, pretentious, _magniloquent_ – brisling with thousands of secrets and truths. And I loved it – I loved it too. I did not just read – but I devoured whole books, feasted on forgotten truths; I gorged on archaic, useless knowledge. Whilst I salivated for those pages, my father always lurked; a hovering shadow. I caught snatches of roguish smiles sneaking across his face whilst patting me firmly on the back. Well _thought_, my son: well _thought_of you. He nearly shook my hand. But he did not; that was improper.

I began to walk along the swanky halls and lavish parlours with a battered book always wrapped up to my chest; I would begin to follow his hollow footsteps into velvet libraries, lurked behind him in vast, marble archives, entombed beneath the earth. _The real gods of the world lurk here_, he would utter angrily – in his usual short, squirming, hoarse shouts. He had never been taught to speak quietly. My father did always prefer austere silence – everything always sounded better in his head.

My mother watched us from the cool shade. She disapproved.

"He is too fanciful, Orrin. He will be crushed under the strain of court."

During those hot, insufferable summers, those long sweltering days, they met only in the fleeting glimpse of dusk. They would walk among the golden, sun-baked leaves and blooming sweet-peas, wittering meaninglessly about how much the two of them despised horticulture in all forms.

"He's too _weak_. He's too _soft._"

She glared pointedly at my father. He said nothing.

"He doesn't live in the real world_(7)_."

She was right. I lived in a world of butterfly wings, of honeysuckle and morning dew, framed by the golden gates of the palace I called 'home'. Basic was luxurious, luxurious was absurd; even the sunbeams which caressed my every movement were thoroughly cleansed. Dainty, wide-eyed servants would fall at my footsteps_(8)_, waiting on my every slightest desire, on the faintest of whims, eager to fulfil any deliciously spicy fantasy, batting their long, quivering lashes as they combed and ruffled my curls, 'Oh, he'll be a gorgeous one, won't he? He looks so much like his mother...'

"You worry too much," my father finally replied, with a derisive snort. "It didn't do _me_any harm. Perhaps you should take a break from all that paper-pushing you so adore?"

To prove my mother completely and utterly wrong in all forms possible_(9)_, he proposed a project. Between him and me.

"We're going to fly," announced my father, hoarsely.

I didn't even need to say 'yes'.

The parameters of said project: a small contraption that would able to propel itself for a limited amount of time upwards, unaided. Without magic. Magic was cheating.

We set to work. Plans were organised, drawings were made. Extensive calculations were made; stacks of paper spurned across the floor. The world drew itself into linear Xs and Ys and Phetas and Phis. Clockwork men, we became, working dusk 'tll dawn, dancing to some insane tune. My father's workshop, previously airy, light, smelling of wood-polish and fresh worktables, became littered with broken quills and bottles of ink, dribbling candle wax, cracked teacups –

"You haven't shaved in days, Orrin," my mother said, absently, as she shuffled through the daily pile of documentation. "You're too old. You look ridiculous."

He merely grunted in response. Our meticulous plans, our rabid scribblings – those blotchy words were sprinkled in gold dust to us – and _her_objections were mere prattle. We had decided on a system based on a motor mechanism, which could be wound up and continue to spin for several minutes before faltering. These motors would, through pulleys, make the wings flap and the structure soar, and it was a simple case of altering the tail structure to balance the weight evenly.

"It's not going to work," said my mother, passing us by in a long, strident corridor, her endlessly dark eyes – eyes which were my own – locking with my father's as she passed.

My father pointedly ignored her. Each evening, he would slam all doors, lock them two, three, four times, and storm into the workshop, crashing down into his chair, with a bottle of whiskey. He would refuse to come out. His eyes, usually so strained under the weight of his thick, white eyebrows, began to bulge with red, erratic blood-lines. He would refuse to let anyone in – or out. I was there, with him, in the workshop, of course. This experiment was for _me._

"I expect you haven't even begun testing yet, have you?" my mother muttered over light breakfast, of toasted teacakes, with a slither of jam.

That evening, we began testing. He would smuggle me out of the palace beneath his thick, musty 'travelling' cloak, worn, stained with grime. We traipsed under hoods through the empty streets, slathered in dirt and stinking of urine, with the faint howls of a starving child could be heard... My father ushered me to turn my head and keep my nose firmly upright, in case of infection. His hand gripped my shoulder severely.

We snuck out to the lake.

"Test on three... two... one..."

Mist slowly rose off the still surface. It was chilly. Damp.

"Test on three... two... one..."

I would sit, shivering, on the edge of a rickety, fishing-platform, derelict long ago, swinging my legs as my father threw prototype frames across the black lake, and land with a _plop._

I have not the faintest clue, in retrospect, why my father chose a murky bog to test it. It wasn't the most _practical_ decision. He was completely mistaken if he thought _she_wouldn't follow him.

"Orrin!" she called from a lumpy rock above, beneath rotting willow tree, on the second evening. Her voice was clear, ringing, a chuckling bell.

My father did not look upwards.

"This isn't going to work, Orrin," she cried, her words broken by the wind. "Aren't you _supposed_to be running a country?"

His eyes slowly moved to glance at me.

"What example _are_ you setting, Orrin? You're reckless and irresponsible. Don't you _care_(10) about _your__ son?_"

And then I saw the furious scowl that weighed on his face.

"We are going to _ignore_her," he hissed.

We continued regardless of _her_presence, testing, throwing, calculating, marking, re-evaluating. Again. Repeat. Again. Repeat. She stopped yelling, soon enough. She would watch us, perched up on her rock, her soft silk gowns marred by the grime. Watching us, my father and I, toil below, far away from her lofty realm. And she began speaking. Criticising.

"The wing material isn't taut. The pulleys have too much friction. The framework is too brittle."

Her words were always clinically spoken. Precise. Extracted by cold pincers from a physician's cloak. We would ignore them, though. I couldn't tell, though, but under the wash of the moonlight – was she smiling as she said them? I would look away before I could tell – I was, of course, completely disinterested in her frivolous criticism. Because my father and I – we were going to soar, together...

After two hours, when the sky above was wrapped up in a blanket of glittering stars, she left. We worked on, into the night – we did not need her presence, nor her scalding remarks, to continue.

She came again on the third evening, though. And the fourth. And the fifth, and the sixth, and the seventh...

I quite liked having her there.

My father would regurgitate every syllable of praise or gratitude toward me if I as so much recognised it, and burst into an angry flame of insults – as he had a habit of doing – but I liked it. The King, the Queen, and the Prince were finally gathered together for an occasion without ribbons or brassy fanfares or pomp. A set. A family_(11)_. Throwing gliders across a murky swamp.

It was enough.

And slowly, the frame didn't sink at every flight. And sure enough, the pulley didn't stick at every other tug. And eventually, the strings no longer snapped.

She still criticised every syllable he uttered. Scrutinising, as if hunched one of my father's scientific instruments.

But my father? No – he didn't listen to her petulant squawking anymore_._ He was too happy. Too proud. And he began grinning, grinning victoriously. _See! See it fly_... (like an impossible dream... fluttering in the wind... )

We began to get to work again. Or rather, we didn't. Building the properly sized final model wasn't work for us _theorists_– no, workmen did the job for us. Aristocrats always hated getting their hands dirty.

"We need a name for it – do we not?" he said to me, "An iconic name – a grand name – something inspiring?"

I nodded obediently in response. He continued to indulge in pondering, his lips barely moving as he spoke.

"There are the obvious names – birds – swallows, doves, partridges – pah! As if we're going to name such a _beautiful_machine after a plump little bird..." he trailed off again.

"I guess there's also the _ceremonial _names – " he pulled an honest grimace. I don't blame him – even my father could be overwhelmed by ostentation. "Lady Victorious, Lady Liberty, Lady – urgh," he paused, looking up to me. "They're all women, aren't they?"

I chuckled uneasily. It echoed hollowly in the workshop.

"Perhaps The _Little_Prince?" he said, smirking. I bit my tongue, holding it still – if anyone else had made such a remark over my stature, it would have burst out in flames and I would have pulled a delightful tantrum.

"No," he said suddenly, scratching his beard. "Too obvious. Are there any ideas you have?"

"Me, father?" I asked. My input was only ever required when it was convenient.

"Yes, you, I'm talking to you," he said, with a snort. "Or don't you have a single thought of your own?"

I frowned. Glancing at the nearly-finished machine, strangled by the suffocating scaffolding, the meticulous design, the delicate, intricate, swirling paint... I saw a creature, who longed to be free...

"The Red Dragon," I said, adamantly, with a firm nod for conviction.

My father's face fell. "Why _red_(12)_?_"

"Because it is red – isn't it?"

It was. Bright vermillion, waving like a fiery flag, faded to a deep, rumbling crimson, almost sorrowful; our contraption was _dripping_in the colour.

My father was silent for a moment. A loud, uncompromising breath. He swallowed, slowly. Then he chuckled. Slowly.

"You're too observant for your own good, boy."

He even ruffled my hair, with an awkward left hand – I twitched. I was _eleven years old_– and far too old for that. But I let him, anyway – my father rarely deemed it appropriate to touch another.

The Red Dragon it was, then.

It would first fly on Scarlet Eve – the last day of summer, and the last day of the Old Galbatorixan Empire, now confined to the dusty pages of history books. The festival was the most chaotic, violent, and _wonderful_ that I could ever imagine – even as a morbid child – and they went wild, especially in brash Belatona, who _adored_ a good festival whenever it could drop the regimented, reserved demeanour of a capital city. The world erupted into a firestorm of swirling ribbons and gaudy fanfares, alit by flaring torches, softened by the scent of easy wine. Our machine would fly as the people below danced in the crimson night, adorned in the colour of the blood, the blood shed by our _dutiful_ soldiers thirty-five years ago, who _graciously_sacrificed their lives for victory(13).

When I thought of her, my mother, the second, third, fourth things that came to mind were those Scarlet Eves. My father was always never to be seen – busy somewhere or somehow with organising displays and dances and diners (all official, all approved). Yet my mother – my mother, her arms usually laden with official documentation, with rigid work – she was restless those nights. Jittering.

"Marco?" she called, to me. There was something shrill about her voice. "Are you... occupied?"

Her polished fingernails drummed repeatedly on the edge of a frail vase. Regular patterns. A procession of fingers. She didn't look at me. Her eyes were scouring – impatiently – for something else, flitting back and forth across the room.

"We shall walk, Marco," she would say. Her voice was very soft. It might break if I touched it.

I would struggle to keep alongside her long, purposeful strides – strides that, those nights, quivered, but lurched forwards regardless. I was not permitted to hold her hand usually – but she would let me clutch it tight, grab it, then. I think she was glad. We would promenade around the Palace boundaries two, three, four times, before we tired.

"We shall stop here."

We would sit in the empty chapel pews, our hands in our laps. The figures of the windows were mere shadows, trembling ghosts, painted silver and pearly grey. I had never seen them in the day, blasted in full colour – my father thought little of petty 'gods', and my mother thought of different gods completely, with strange, gnarled names like Hkarmish and Jhunito and Azezel.

"Oberon is my favourite. King of the shadows."

She would spend the next few hours telling stories. Small tales – usually whimsical folk tales, little fairy stories, slight fantasies. I liked her stories about the north the best; the barren tundra, the frigid ice, earth as rigid as iron – unshakeable – as she was supposed to be. She liked those stories best too – of a heartless, cold world – distant, yet all too real. She sometimes dropped a mention of her own life – tiny, insignificant things, the itsy bitsy details, from when she was a little girl – but not often. Her voice would begin to shake a bit when she spoke of that.

There was something , you see – something I could not quite understand... something unknown that seized her on those nights, the still, tranquil figure of my mother...

I ignored it. I pretended she was talking directly to _me_.

I would listen to her every word, slurp up her every syllable, lilting, like the cusp of the sea, ebbing and flowing, as she weaved her tales – this strange creature who acted nothing like my mother. She was lovely, this woman – ever so flustered, ever so... dazed – it was fun, even, if I dare use the word, _amusing_ – but I couldn't quite comprehend... grasp... I felt like I was missing something.

I missed my mother.

"The poor thing. She's very lost," said a chamber-maid_(14_), sadly, as I passed by, one year.

"Pining," nodded a second, with conviction.

"_Hungry,"_spluttered a third, stifling laughter.

After hearing that, I stopped looking forward to our Scarlet Eves.

That particular Eve, I was far too preoccupied with _important_matters to think of her. I was stood directly next to my father, overseeing the events alongside him for the first time, nodding and smiling expectantly to cheering crowds. First was the lighting ceremony, strings of candles being lit off rooftops, then was the first dance, swirling, the second dance, twirling, and then carnival procession, of beads and blood and drumbeats, float, by float, by float –

Really, I did not care. I was burning in anticipation – in waiting – for _our _Dragon to fly. To soar. To sail across those stars, a monster in the sky. I wanted to see it – I wanted to see, something, my own effort, for the first time in my life – actually _work._

And so, the carnival came and went, and the third dance would occur, and then a fanfare would be made, and a procession would follow...

My father was nervous too. He did not show it – well. His fingers, now and again, were the giveaway. They would clench, into tight, rigid little balls, before relaxing again.

"It's coming next," he muttered to me, during the cathedral's midnight chimes. "After the bells."

Twelve dongs passed. Dong. Dong. Dong. My heart could have stopped at each one.

But something – something was weaving through the crowd. Ruby red – and glistening; those were _actual_rubies. It streamed through the people, and ran up – to us, to the stage.

My father gave her a loathsome look. But she wasn't looking at him – no, for the first time, she was looking at _me. _

"I hope you're _content_ with this," said my mother, sternly. I blinked – she _was_looking at me. And frowning. Why was she frowning? I didn't understand –

A roar erupted from the crowd.

"Here it comes!" called my father. His head was turned towards the attention of the sky.

The Red Dragon shot out of the cathedral tower. Ruby red – and glistening. Its wings arched over the flaming city, sweeping us up and down with its rhythmic motion. I watched it flap... once, twice, three times...

It was flying. It was really flying.

We watched it for a few moments, as it circled above Belatona. We could only marvel, really. This mechanical beast – we had seen nothing like it before.

And he, my father, _he_ was grinning. _Maddeningly._

"Spectacular," he murmured. "Absolutely – " he turned to face me quickly – but then quickly to my mother. He did not hide his utter joy – grinning in _public_ no less, what would have his dreary parents thought? A delighted – a _devious_grin – whose set of crooked teeth made my skin crawl. It was an honest smile.

My mother did not flinch.

Suddenly, the Dragon erupted into flames. (_Red_flames, blazing like the sun itself.)

I still don't know how it happened – how it could _possibly _happen, without the aid of magic. Because all of our calculations, all of our theories, all of our potentialities accounted for – no, this wasn't even _logical._ There was nothing remotely flammable, nor was the frictional forces ever going to be strained enough to have even a fraction of the heat... no, this made _no sense_.

I didn't understand.

How the majestic creature, this _wonderful_creation of ours – could die with a fragment of the wind – no, I don't understand it at all.

I watched the hard graft of the past three months explode into a rapture of red.

"Spectacular," my mother murmured. A gentle smile braced her lips. "Red Dragon at night; True Love's delight."

It was one of her folk rhymes_(15)_.

.

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><p><em>Footnotes of Varying Importance<em>:

1(I still cannot fathom what pitiful creature would dare mount my mother. Certainly, it was not my father)

2(11 m/s)

3 (Assur, Dur Sarukin, Nineveh, and finally, Aberon.)

4 (I utterly refuse to list them all.)

5 (Hamlet. What else _did_ you expect, you ignorant cretin?)

6(She was – _is – _the cruellest, maddest, sickest, nastiest, most _relentless_ lover I have ever had. And obviously, I was completely and utterly infatuated with her.)

7(My dearest mother forgets that this statement rarely _doesn't _apply.)

8(Aged ten, and I already had a gift with the ladies.)

9(It was his most treasured pastime, his greatest _pleasure_.)

10(Irony was non-existent for my dearest mother. So was hypocrisy.)

11(Fate had no sense of irony either.)

12(Red dragons were notorious. They were an omen. Entire towns would lay waste in their ravenous wake; flumes of the smoke from the blackened, barbecued bodies billowed behind them – supposedly. Equally, to spot one was usually considered rather unfortunate luck).

13(A more cynical (and accurate) estimation would be that it symbolised the bloodied corpses of the enemies we happily slew. What? It's not as if the Crown Prince of Alagaesia is _expected_ to be a patriot.)

14(Now what was her name? Felicia? Annette? Adriana, maybe – or perhaps Lily; they all become one, eventually, those soft-faced women... )

15(I would have _loved_ to be able to say they were cheering because _I_ was there – although I think that's a mite too presumptuous, even for _me._)

16(It was past 12 o'clock. The correct phrase would have been: "Red Dragon in the morning; True Love's warning.")

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><p><strong>AN**: This was meant to be a one-shot, but it's actually going to be a short (emphasis on 'short') chapter story. Nowhere near on _A Midnight Masque_ scale (my main IC fic - check it out, if you haven't!). If _The Girl Who Waited_ ends up over 7 chapters long, I'll eat my hat.

Yes, she married Orrin. Go on, shoot me.


	2. Gap

The Gap Between The Numbers

My father refused to leave his study for three weeks after said incident.

I wasn't allowed in.


	3. Half

Halves

_..  
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I waited. And waited. And waited. Outside of his door; each day; on the dot. He wouldn't let me in.

This was a _disaster. _No – this had never happened before.

I was the only thing my parents shared, you see. Separate rooms. Separate rooms, separate beds, separate kingdoms – his and hers – but you couldn't cut a child up into conveniently-sized packages, saying this is his and this is hers and no it isn't hers it's his don't be stupid etc. They couldn't split me apart, so they clawed me to shreds trying.

Not that there was much point.

Because I was Marco Orrinsson. Not Myrtle Nasuadasdaughter16. My allegiance had already been marked, my role was already clearly marked, categorised, the ink in the history books already gathering dust. I was _his_ son. I read books, recited poetry, lost myself in leafy dreams, in sweltering jungles of syllables – 'father' was written in the blood. My mother? No, she would _never_ lose herself in such frivolous ideas.

I was his. I belonged to him. That didn't stop _her_ from trying, though17 – not like she ever won, contrary to what she liked to believe. I grew to loathe my mother with age. No, I was his object, his ratty-tatty plaything, an overstuffed patched doll. His favourite one, though – he wouldn't simply toss me aside, like a mud-splattered rag, would he? I think. (I _hope._)

I pretended not to care, though. As if I was supposed to care. What part of 'His Majesty the Rightful Heir and Crown Prince of the Second Glorious Empire of Alagaesia' didn't say fashionably blasé?

(Mother was right_(18)_. I am exactly like my father.

Exactly.)

* * *

><p>Three weeks marched friskily by. The plucky trees of Belatona's Palace were stripped in co-ordinated precision, and the scatters of frail leaves left on the floor, windy browns and yellows, were swept away by an efficient broom.<p>

My mother, as usual, was busy working, 'keeping up appearances', with a smile buttoned to her face, before she decided she was 'fed up with it'.

"Orrin!"

She tapped on the brown door with her brown knuckles. Two times.

"It's _me_, dear. Yes, of course it's _me._ The cats are petrified out of their wits, and I doubt a servant would dare grovel at your door in this state."

No response.

I was sitting outside the doorway, my hands encumbered with a hefty book. Waiting. Perhaps if I had listened closer, with my ear cooped up against the brickwork, straining for a scrap, a morsel of a whisper, I perhaps could have garnered half an echo of half a pitiful grumble.

Or maybe not. Maybe I would have heard nothing at all.

"No, I don't know where _he_ is."

He? My ears leapt up with enthusiasm. He – could _I_ be he? My mother did not look at me. Then again, she _usually_ didn't. Even less so since last Scarlet Eve. No – not even a sidelong glance wafted in my vague direction. Probably not, then...

"No – no, I am not – look. Look, you are going to let me in."

After fifteen begrudging minutes, he let her in_(19)_.

* * *

><p>I believe that was the point things started changing.<p>

(Or maybe they had always been that way.)

"You're going to boarding school."

"... what? I am _not_ going to boarding school."

"You're going to boarding school."

"No, I am _not_ going to boarding school – I utterly _refuse_ to go."

"You're going to boarding school."

"No – you can't make me – I am not – "

Then I burst into tears.

This is a highly exaggerated and simplified paraphrase of the next three weeks of arguments. Most of which didn't involve my opinions, my thoughts, my ideas – then again, since when did any of those matter?

I would sit outside and listen. Grasping hold of a book. Tentatively.

They were arguing about _me_.

There were a few times – the few, where my heart would swell with vicious joy, bloated, and burst out of my throat into laughter. They were arguing _because_ of me – because of me_. _

Were they?

I liked to pretend they did.

I could easily – easily pretend that the reason was something more common. Love. Care. Dedication. But my parents thought themselves above those things. King and Queen, lost in dreams beyond our babbling, the tittering of mere mortals.

I guess I now have a confession to make. I used to believe that my family was normal_(20)_.

Maybe it was some half-sprung hope clutching – clawing – at a broken string, but I honestly did think that. Once. Forgive this old boy for the occasional bout of naivety, will you? It's something I've inherited – I don't think I can quite blame myself, for that, can you?

I used to think utterly loathing each other in marriage was fairly acceptable.

Perhaps that's an unfair judgement. Perhaps I don't give a fuck about unfair judgements, and I want to damn them all, damn all of their petty children's games, their sing-song charades, to a scalding hot hell. I haven't really decided which I prefer.

My parents – how strange, it is, to speak them as one whole – fought. Tit-for-tat. Chiding and chastising. And _bickering_ – they bickered, like nothing else. Always did, always will.

This was normal. This was completely ordinary. I didn't particularly care about it. Much.

Often, I'd sit behind a lighted screen, and watch their silhouettes dance beneath the candlelight, absently listening to their twirling carousels of words, of spat insults, of broken promises again and again, rising up and down in garish patterns and flickering lights.

I used to wonder _why_. Because – I _still _don't know. I don't want to know. I don't want to know what strange, violent animal instinct led them to ripping each other, jabbing each other, clawing – not just once, not just twice, but every single irritable, pedantic day of their too-short-but-too-long-lives until death do them part.

Did they _enjoy_ it? Did they enjoy _loathing _each other? I sometimes wonder if it was just some perverted, some nauseating pre-mating ritual, tossing and turning and screaming, before engaging in loathsome, vivid hate-sex_(21)_. Clunking. Up and down. Monotonously. It was as ridiculous as their little quarrels.

Or maybe they simply despised each other.

I don't think they did, though. At least, not before then – not back when the world's walls were the lavish trimmings of the palace corridors, and the ceilings a blanket of stars. My mother could still cry then. I could still hear it, her shrill, broken, sobbing, if I strained to hear, at the crack of dawn. And my father could still whisper, mutter soft lullabies, with his hands tentatively placed on hers...

I don't think I ever heard him speak like that again. I saw her cry again, though.

* * *

><p>It was cold. I had woken up – shivering. Outside the looming windows: the sky – black. Threatening. No stars.<p>

I crawled out of the fine and far too expensive sheets – like shiny wrapping paper, pretty, but useless. The hard, stone floor was freezing. I yelped out in pain.

No reply.

I quickly found a pair of moth-gnawed slippers, soothing my chilly little feet. They seized up into little balls as I trod to the door. I banged on it once. Twice. Three times, four – rapidly. With two fists, repeatedly, banging.

No reply.

I swallowed. Slowly, I unhinged the latch on my bedroom door. It creaked. I shuffled away, along the empty corridors, scuffing my feet as I went. Gripping hard and tight to my nightclothes. Biting my lip like a girl.

"You can't change the world."

"I know."

"You're not magical."

"I _know_."

They were still at it. It was the death of night _and they were still at it_. You know the culprits – you _know_ who I mean. My father. My mother. Bickering. I could hear their remarks rebound and twist off the walls. It pierced the darkness. It echoed in my ears – I didn't like it.

"You were never the hero of 'this story' and – "

"And neither were _you!_ And yet, it is I, it is _I_ – I who is conceited, mislead, impractical, up-their-merry-ass – I'm somehow lost in a romantic dream? _Ha!_ – _Ha!_"

"I'm not laughing."

I sunk to my knees, in my usual spot, outside their door. In complete oblivion. Listening.

"Well, I _am. _You're ludicrous. You think you can change the world by smiling_._"

"Oh god, _this_ again – "

"Yes, this again_. _It is always again and again_ – _"

_Again and again and again and again. _

"I don't see your problem with it all –

"– it's always the same old _bickering– _"

"I don't bicker_(22__)_. Honestly. You'd be surprised – "

"Surprised? _Surprised?_ I am. I am constantly _amazed_ by how _you_ can smile, slippery, snide, odious little smiles – you don't fool _me_ with them, I _know_ – I know –, when... how much of a _mess_ – how much _blood_ – don't you ever think of that? Don't you ever stop and _think_ – perhaps – perhaps..."

A choked silence. Lost for words. Well, that was certainly a first.

"Nasuada..."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Nasuada – "

"_I don't know what you're talking about._"

I could have made glaciers of those words.

Then there was the sound of glass shattering. Hard. My father – he garbled a tangle of words, hoarse, sudden words – fearful – but I couldn't hear them above the screaming. A brittle scream. A woman's.

My mother slammed the door open, and ran.

She didn't even take one look at me.

"Nasuada!"

I ran. I followed her – I followed her broken, frantic footsteps – not, as she usually strode, calm. Composed. Dignified. Precise – but lopsided and jaggedy and all-over-the-place – I followed them. I didn't want my father to find me either.

She flung open the door of a large bedroom – one of hers. I followed. I shut the door behind us.

"Nasuada – please! Nasuada –"

His voice echoed behind the walls. The fool wouldn't find either of us here.

The room was large, and spacious, plastered with clotted, ostentatious purple wallpaper. I stood in a dark, shadowy atrium, behind the main bedroom. Beyond the heavy drapes, the room gaped open with thin, silvery windows – beautiful things – but fragile, and cold; they would shatter into a thousand glittering shards at a human touch.

I moved forwards. The thin, worn floorboards creaked.

"Who's there?" she muttered, quietly, to herself.

My mother was sat on the plush bed, her legs dangling over the side. She was gazing out entirely the direction of the window – and the faceless sky. I watched her chest – her entire body – rise and fall. Swelling up, and deflating. Her fingers fidgeted – aimlessly – with the smooth and luxurious sheets. Distractedly. She wasn't quite still. There was something – shaking – in her. Something haunted; there were ghosts in the room, lurking between the cracks in the floor. Or rather – the cracks in my mother. They were haunting _her_. Haunting the gaunt figure of my mother, pulling her stern lines, ironed with age, into something softer, something younger – more _womanly _... it reminded me, almost, of those twitching, nervous Scarlet eves –

"I said, who _is_ it?"

Her head swung in the direction of me. Her eyes widened, suddenly – and narrowed – unable to place – unsure –

"Murtagh_(23)_?" she asked, tentatively, softly – almost, gently – whispering. She didn't believe her own voice.

I said nothing.

She stood up suddenly – looking at me, directly at _me _–

"Who – who _are_ you?"

The words were thick, buttery, slathered with an accent of long, sultry Surdan nights, swelling with the mountain air – it was the voice of someone who had almost never seen the Empire. And this voice was... startled. _Terrified._

"What are you doing here?" she asked, quietly. "What are you doing in my room? I don't know you."

Didn't know me? _Me?_ The Crown Prince of Alagaesia? Well – that was all I ever was to her – and anyone else, for that fact – anyway. I would have laughed if I wasn't so bloody scared. This – this wasn't _real_, was it?

"M-mother – "

"Mother?" her face crumpled up. "No – no..." she trailed off. "This is one of his tricks, isn't it? You're one of his illusions – you're not real – "

"Mother – "

"I – I am _not_ your mother."

"But..." I trailed off. "I'm _Marco_. Your _son._" She looked at me, bewildered, simply unable to comprehend. I tried to spell it out for her: "Em-Ay-Ar-See-Oh. Marco. I'm your son, Marco Orrinsson – "

"_Orrinson?_" she asked, incredulously. I tried to continue – but a cruel, callous laugh trickled out from her, making the windows tremble and shake with delight.

"Oh god – this is _definitely_ a dream, isn't it?" she shook her head. She was chuckling precariously to herself – _smiling(24)_. "Dear god, you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel if you thought _this_ – " She pointed at me, vaguely, whilst calling out in the direction of the window, "If such an odious little nightmare can convince _me_. Pah! What a fool – an absolute _fool_ –"

"Mother," I said, my voice rising, "Mother, _what are you saying?_"

Her head snapped back to me, with a smug smile jittering all over it. "Oh, you. You're not real. I'm not paying attention to you."

This was impossible.

"... But I _am_ real – but I am – I am!_(25)_"

"You're not real at all. You're an illusion designed to make me give away information. I'm not paying attention to you – "

I found myself beginning to cry, sobbing, softly. This was pathetic – _I_ was pathetic. Her eyes widened – was it sympathy? From _my mother_? No – no, I was deluded to think that, and she was too – she was shaking her head, her face falling suddenly –

"Get out of my head!" she screeched. "Get out! Get out!"

I stood there. Dumb. In shock. Wait – was _she_ crying too? Were those – _tears?_

"Get out before I call the guards!" Her voice shook uncontrollably. "I'll call them – I will, they'll rescue me – Get out get out _get out get out – _"

That was when my father sprang in. I ran then – out of the door and back to my room. He didn't give me a second glance – no, he was entirely focused on her.

I could hear him consoling her, as he always used to do, behind me as I ran.

Eventually, I got fed up of it all. I got fed up of trying.

The quarrel ended like this:

"You're going to boarding school."

"Fine."

..

* * *

><p><em>..<br>_

_Footnotes of Minor Relevance:_

16(As she would have called me, if I were born with a vagina between my legs. Think about it – my mother is as subtle as a herd of hormone-fuelled buffalo with rabies.)

17(My mother always did love a priceless collectable, after all.)

18(First Rule: Mother is always right.)

19(Refer to the First Rule.)

20( As if there's such a thing. Stuff of _fairy_ tales – and this is coming from a kid who sees elves and dragons and magical-floaty-things on a semi-regular basis.)

21(Once a week. Saturday Mornings. Mother was always on top. Father was _such_ a tease though – you couldn't possibly _imagine_.)

22(Second rule: Mother always lies.)

23(Believe it or not, I had not come across this particular name before – not even in my historical studies, which focused on every era _before_ the Civil War. My parents were loath to talk about the Empire – especially the war – and _especially _that 'man' – for completely opposing reasons.)

24(Third Rule: Mother never smiles).

25(Eleven year old logic follows that repeating the exact same phrase again more loudly will convince the other person _entirely _of what you're saying.)

..

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** I meant to update this much sooner. Sorry. Illness got in the way. I also rehashed some of the first chapter.

Edit: DERP. Failed on the footnotes again - those things are _hard._


	4. Hole

Important Titles of No Significance: A Secondary, Inferior Gap.

It turned out that my father _did_ notice our 'minor incident', and as a result, my name changed. My father – and therefore, by extension, anyone of importance – no longer called me by my chosen name, but instead I became 'Little Prince' or 'Honoured Son' or 'Young Master' or 'Crown Inheritor' –

You get the gist of it, don't you?

Afterwards, my father only called me by my first name once – just once. He had decided to explain 'everything' about my mother, and thought it pertinent to refer to me personally. Of course, she had died seven years ago by then, when 'everything' had already occurred. Not to mention I knew 'everything' already.

I figured it out. I'm not _stupid._

Oh dear. Did I just give the game away? Well, that's most unfortunate(26).

* * *

><p>26(As is life. Not good, not righteous, of course, but did I ever claim or aim to be any of those things?)<p> 


End file.
